This invention is in the combined fields of manufacturing chocolate candy and psychiatry. Chocolate is obviously one of the most popular condiments for complex reasons of taste, various positive attributes persons often associate with chocolate and the act of eating chocolate, and certain real or alleged favorable body chemistry or mental reactions from eating chocolate candy. The actual manufacture of chocolate in its various chemical compositions is known in the prior art. The new invention herein disclosed concerns the creation on the surface of a chocolate candy of a sculpture or embossed image of a person's face adapted from a photographic image of same.
The concept of creating and embossing a design or manufacturer's name on the surface of a chocolate or other candy is well known. The novelty herein is sculpting a person's image in chocolate by taking a person's own photographic image, adapting it in a manner to render it transferrable onto a chocolate candy surface, and carrying out the steps to complete such a process and simultaneously creating a sealed container for each candy where the container top also bears the person's image.
While it is obvious that a person's facial appearance is of great concern to him or her, it was surprising to discover that many persons are very favorably disposed to having their images sculpted on a chocolate candy that will be seen and eventually eaten by themselves and others. It was also discovered, however, that a photographic image, when transferred directly onto a mold as by photo-etching, for example, and thence onto chocolate often produces a very unattractive and inaccurate replication of the photographic image and impression. It is due to the color, composition and texture of chocolate that direct photo-transfer processes, which might be obvious in the paper products industry, are wholly intolerable in making chocolate photo embossments. For example, freckles, eyes and dimples which usually comprise beauty features, are likely to appear on chocolate as blemishes, pits or worse.
The present invention has recognized the passion millions of persons have to eat chocolate and some of the obvious and subtle reasons why persons would like to have their facial image appear on chocolates they and their friends eat or give as a gift to a friend bearing the friend's own facial image on each individual chocolate candy. The applicant herein has furthermore discovered the great difficulties in transferring a photo image onto chocolate without producing an unattractive and/or inaccurate replication, and has developed a new process to achieve this end as described in following sections.